Instructional Plan

Was hat in der

Vergangenheit
passiert?
(What happened in the past?)

Edina Sokolovic
Academic Year 2018-2019
Winter Semester
German level 2 – 11th Grade
East Kentwood High School
Overview

Was hat in der

Vergangenheit passiert?
Description of Learning Environment
School

East Kentwood High School: Located in Kentwood, MI.

Student Body: 1883
Total Minority Enrollment: 63%
Total Economically Disadvantaged: 57%
Gender Breakdown: 50% Female, 50% Male
Population Breakdown:
Asian:15%
Black:30%
Hispanic:14%
White:37%
Two or more Races:4%

Students
This lesson was designed for students in German 2. We have several native speakers
as exchange students in the school, these classes do not have any native speakers.
However, we have a few ELL students that may need extra time with the activities and
testing. This is the second year of German for the students. These students produce
intermediate low language in writing and orally. In written they can produce basic
sentences in the present tense. In oral production they will produce few words or
phrases in order to communicate.

The students have never seen the present perfect tense before. The unit is designed in
a way where students will be introduced slowly to the important rules of the present
perfect tense. The students will be required to create sentences using the present
perfect tense, they can be more simple sentences it is just to show that they have
mastered the rules of conjugation. The students have a base knowledge of the present
tense, future tense, accusative and dative prepositions. By knowing some of the
different ways of conjugation of the verbs will help them learn the past tense version
easier. The students know the German alphabet, numbers, as well as the months and
seasons of the year. The have a base knowledge of the spelling rules with the umlaut
and they are doing better with the pronunciations of the German words.

I have few special considerations to consider for this group of students is ELL and
ADHD. Which I plan to accommodate on the activities as well as on the testing.
Students are given assigned seating seats at the beginning of each new unit. This
allows students to meet their classmates and help the community grow in the class.

Unit Theme

1. Subject: German
2. Topic or Unit: Was hat in der Vergangenheit passiert?
3. Grade/Level: 11th Grade (Intermediate Low)
4. Grammar and Vocabulary covered: past tense, traveling and describing cities
5. Time: 5 days
Objectives and Standards
Language Outcomes

Students will be able to…

- Predict how the past tense is used
- Identify the differences and similarities between English and German
- Using the past tense students will be able to compare German cities with our
own
- Use technology to view and analyze the differences between the two cultures
- Talk about their past experiences in traveling, visiting other cities/countries
- Understand the past tense grammar rules
- Form basic sentences using past tense

Integration of Standards- Intermediate Low

ACTFL:
1.1.M.SL. f Share a detailed description of places and things beyond their immediate
environment or in the target culture
1.2.M.L.d Understand main idea and supporting detail, and summarize an audio presentation
(CD, lecture, radio, podcast, songs/ music)
2.2.M.G.a Identify and describe regions and their distinctive characteristics within the countries
where the language is spoken
4.1.M.b Select grammatical structures recognizing that meaning is not always conveyed
through direct word-for-word translation from one’s own language to the target language
5.2.M.b Use authentic target language print materials and electronic media to explore topics of
personal interest within their own culture and the new culture

Knowledge Constructor

Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct

knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for

themselves and others.

Creative Communicator

Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of

purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to

their goals.

Critical Thinking Skills

This part is very crucial for many high school students, they don’t seem to have courage
and willingness to do their personal best. Critical thinking skills aren’t created on their
own they are developed thru collaborative learning environment in the classroom. I
personally believe that students can gain a lot of trust and gain a lot of learning by
working with a partner or smaller groups. Building a community in your classroom will
help prepare your students for the lives after high school, I will help them with real life
events in their future.

I also strongly agree that students should be given enough time to work on certain
projects in order to gain the full potential from that assignment. Students should be
allowed to express their feeling about the stuff that they are learning, their brains are still
developing. This is a very important stage of their lives and teachers play a huge role in
their students lives. One thing I plan to include almost everyday is group work, I want
them to learn with each other and from each other. This will also allow them to practice
their interpersonal skills with one another.

High Leverage Teaching Practices:

For this unit I plan to incorporate as many high leverage teaching practices as possible.
I want to make this a practice that I will keep for rest of my teaching career. Practice
makes better and that is where I will fully dive in and make it a priority for myself. Below
I have listed few high leverage teaching techniques that I have incorporated in this unit
and in my teaching practice experience so far.

- Leading a group discussion – I like to start a conversation about the topic we are
covering, whether it be just doing a culture comparison or current news. This
gives the students the change to open and participate in the discussions. By
starting with a question and examples will get the students thinking and start
saying what they feel about the certain topic.

- Explaining and modeling content, practices and strategies – I try to do this very
often and I did it in this unit. This just makes the language comprehension much
better, students get to see an example and from there they make connections.
Since we worked on grammar, I modeled for them examples of conjugating the
verbs into past tense and that gave them a rule of thumb. I thin that modeling
plays a huge part in second language classroom. We want to provide as many
visuals as possible for our learners.

- Implementing organizational routines – beginning of the class I do a routine with

saying the day and date in German, this keeps the students involved in practicing
the pronunciation. Exit slips as well as oral knowledge check will be done daily.
Another routine that I do with my students I allow them to share any good news,
it is volunteer based. They really like sharing their stuff and makes them be a part
of the class more. Daily Agenda with goals for the day helps students stay on
task and know when something is due for the class.

- Setting up and managing small group work – since I will have them work in small
groups to improve the community in my classroom I will be setting and managing
the small group work. I also plan to put my students in charge of some of the
activities to help them learn to be responsible for their work. Since we will be
learning how to conjugate the verbs, I will have them practice that in small groups
at times. I will count students in order to have them work with someone else
 other then their seat partner. I will also do different size of groups which will allow
the students to be able to express their learning with one another.

- Building respectful relationship with students – I am going to respect my students

and I will ask the same from them in return. I also want my students to feel save
and welcomed in my class as well as to get along with their classmates. I will wait
at the door everyday to meet my students with a smile and positive mood. I want
them to enjoy coming to my class and have fun while learning. When we share
our good news at the beginning of the class, this way we learn something new
about our classmate.

- Checking student understanding during and at the conclusion of lessons – during

my lessons I will ask students for their quick feedback on how they feel what they
just learned. They will do this with putting five fingers if they got it, four fingers for
almost there, three fingers still need help and two fingers I didn’t get it at all.
Some days I plan to do exit slip to say how students feel after the lesson,
following day I will discuss the feedback on the exit slip. I will keep all the
information on the slip anonymous, I just want to make sure that I reached all my
students.

Adapted Materials

At the beginning of this unit I will list all my objectives together with my students and
they will be posed on the board for the entire time of the unit. Everyday I will touch base
on the objective that we are covering on that day, also at the end of the lesson I will
come back to the objective that we work on that day. I want my students to know what
they will learn and what they should know by the time the lesson is over.

Authentic Texts
I will use varies books, mainly Deutsch Aktuell 1 book and grammar exercise books. I
will also incorporate some authentic short stories that we will read as a class so that
students can hear how past tense is used. We will use using German travel guides to
learn more about the different aspects of traveling interest Germans have.

Technology

Throughout this unit I will incorporate technology daily. Since visuals are great for a
world language class, I find it by showing students videos helps them see more of the
culture. We will use you tube video clips to help enhance the learning process. The
videos will help us make a cultural comparison as well since some of the videos are
authentic German. I will also use easy German video where a native speaker teaches
the grammar rules, students find this very interesting. It helps with leaning the
pronunciation and the grammar rules to gain a better understanding. I will also use
google slides to display examples of sentences using the past tense grammar. We will
use Kahoot to practice the vocabulary, I want them to retain as much as possible.

Cultural Connections

We will do this with listening to interviews of people talking about their traveling
experiences all in German. Students can see what all German students like to see, and
they can compare it to their own. Once we finish watching multiple examples of videos,
we will create our own skids with descriptions of a past trip/ experience. This is done to
have the students practice using the past tense and well compare different cities in the
World. This gives the students a chance to look outside their box and explore deeper
into the German culture. By using the language for 90% of the time in the class will help
students make those language, grammar and cultural connections. We will always
compare with our own culture.